The Way of the Princess
by Flaire Murasawa
Summary: The previous three Princesses were masters of their art. Tomoe and Kiriya take the appeal of a Princess to a whole new level. Takes place after Princess Princess. Omake added!
1. Way of the Princess

So, Sasameyuki is a Princess Princess fan, and she introduced me to the series. I read the entire manga and watched several episodes of the live-action drama (because she told me the anime sucked). None of the pairings really struck me until I found Princess Princess +, which practically slapped shounen-ai signals on every panel. So, if it weren't Sasameyuki, I wouldn't be writing this.

Now if she would just finish editing the next chapter of our Phoenix Wright fanfiction so I can around to posting it…

Disclaimer: Princess Princess and Princess Princess + do not belong to me and are the property of Mikiyo Tsuda. I am making no profit from this venture. If anyone would like to offer me money for this work, you would have to send it to Tsuda-sensei.

* * *

'When is this training going to end…?" Tomoe Izumi thought miserably as he forced his eyes from their customary happy curve into a more elegant gaze. When approached with the proposal of becoming one of Fujimori's Princesses, he happily accepted—especially when he met his fellow princess, Kiriya Matsuoka. Right from the start, the bespectacled, brown-haired Matsuoka intially came off as smart and practical, but Tomoe knew he had to have a fun streak. He signed on for this job, after all.

'Then again…'

"More flowery!" commanded upper-classman Shihoudani, making Matsuoka flinch.

'…maybe he just has a masochistic streak.'

Since the Princesses played such a vital role in the student body, Izumi and Matsuoka were required to spend the week before term training under the previous year's Princesses: Shihoudani, Kouno, and Yutaka. He remembered thinking, "The Princesses are essentially the school mascots, right? So we just have to learn a few cheerleading sequences and practice them at home."

Instead, he was faced with the torture of mastering "The Princess Smile!" "The Princess Walk!" "The Princess Wave!" "The Princess Voice!" And, yes, there were "Princess Cheers," too. It was too much!

'I don't see why they're giving him such a hard time.' The blonde freshman observed as, despite a light sheen of sweat, Matsuoka's lips pulled up into a delighted expression. 'He really has a wonderful smile.'

"Hey, Izumi! What are you looking at?" Tomoe blinked at the fingers being snapped in front of his face, following the hand, arm and shoulder back up to the perpetually-pissed countenance of Mikoto Yutaka. "You need to be more 'welcoming' and less 'holier-than thou'!"

No wonder there were so many benefits. This job wouldn't be worth it otherwise.

"Um, like this?"

"No, no, now that's too 'come-hither'."

The young corporate heir could have cried when the school bell tolled noon.

"Oh, it's time for our lunch break." Kouno sounded surprised, like he had so much fun inflicting pain on the underclassmen that he didn't notice the passage of time.

Shihoudani stood up and stretched. "A proper Princess needs to be properly nourished," he addressed them. "I expect you two to eat at least two square meals a day."

"But don't over-do it on the chips and junk food, or you'll get zits," Kouno butted in.

"We're also going to teach you how to apply concealer and make-up sometime during the week," Yutaka grumbled.

Tomoe decided to leave before it got any worse. "Well, thank you so much for the advice, sempai," he stood up and bowed. "Matsuoka and I will be taking our meal now."

The aforementioned Princess-in-Training hurriedly jumped to his feet and also bowed. It seemed like he wasn't the only one desperate to get out of there.

"Okay, then," Kouno grinned amicably. "We'll meet back here in two hours."

Since they didn't entirely know the area around the school yet and had meal tickets to burn, the pair decided to take their lunch in the cafeteria.

"Ugh, how am I supposed to know what a queen acts like? I never wanted to be a queen when I grew up," Tomoe complained as he sat down with his tray of soup and pudding. His face hurt too much to chew.

The brunette sitting across from him nodded in sympathy. "It's really hard to express things with only my eyes with my glasses on, so I'm supposed to make every expression 'extra-big' somehow."

"Shihoudani-sempai is like some really scary ex-diva."

"I can't stand Yutaka-sempai's horror stories."

Together, they sighed. And it was only Day 1.

"Itadakimasu," they chanted gloomily.

Though chatter from fellow students and kitchen clatter filled the air, to the dining Princesses, it seemed blessedly silent. Tomoe delicately sipped from his spoon and Matsuoka ravenously chomped on a steak—there was no need for talk, as long as no one was yelling, "You're doing it wrong!" or "Think of a Victorian doll!" or

"Sit up straight! Don't slouch!"

"Yes, Sempai!"

Even as Tomoe's spine snapped smartly into place, his mind screamed, '!!!!!!!!!'

Kouno practically slithered up from behind him, and the blonde freshman could feel every hair on the back of his neck stand up. It seemed Matsuoka was having a similar experience as Shihoudani materialized to add, "Take smaller bites. Even at your hungriest, you must always remain lady-like to the public eye."

"Yeah, the entire school will be watching you, even when out of costume. Like we told you before, it is very important to uphold the image of a Princess!!!" Kouno stressed, and Tomoe tried his best not to simply break down sobbing on the linoleum floor. With the extra-long lunch break, he assumed the three former Princesses were going out to eat.

"Hey, we don't have to waste our free time teaching these kids!" Yutaka protested. "We can teach them Princess Etiquette while we're on the clock, but for now, I want to enjoy the few hours of Spring Break we've got!"

Yes, they were saved!

"But think about the importance of this job that Akira has entrusted to us," Shihoudani protested. Tomoe had a feeling that he would learn to fear the particular gleam in the sophomore's eyes. "We have to breed these nondescript freshmen into the role of the school's shining stars, the Princesses. Without them, the sports teams will lose all purpose, pep rallies will degenerate into brawls, and fundraisers won't attract any customers!"

The pinkette rolled his eyes. "Don't you think you're overexaggerating?"

"Hey, but imagine," the blue-haired sophomore threw an arm around Yutaka's shoulder, "if the student body itself didn't deem these two worthy of being Princesses?"

Matsuoka and Tomoe exchanged a look that would become the first of many.

Kouno continued, "Akira would have us resume our old duties, since we would be the only ones who could raise school spirit."

"He wouldn't…"

"Oh, he would. Akira's a good president—he'd put school first."

The blonde freshman's heart sank as Yutaka's face went three shades paler…oddly complementing his hair much more nicely, he noted off-handedly. Their only hope was gone.

"Okay, why aren't you sitting like we told you to?!" the upperclassman suddenly shouted. "Close your legs, keep them neatly crossed at the ankles! You're not normal students anymore, you're Princesses, and you will act like it!"

"You will bring your spoon to your mouth, not your mouth to your spoon!"

"Cut your meat into bite-sized pieces, Matsuoka. You are a delicate maiden. And wipe that sauce from your mouth, your face must always remain spotless."

"Izumi, keep yourself upright. I know you're tired, but it's for a good cause."

* * *

It was a winter afternoon when Mikoto ran into Yuujiro and Tohru.

"Hey, where are you guys going?" he asked in surprise.

Yuujiro replied, "To lunch, of course," as the triad automatically fell in step together.

"Kind of late for lunch, isn't it?" Mikoto asked.

"Mitaka had us cataloguing damaged library books," explained the former Western Princess.

"We were just passing by, and out of nowhere, he grabbed us!" wailed the bluenette beside him. "I thought I was going to bleed out from all the paper cuts."

A snarky comment was on the tip of Mikoto's tongue, but the thought was lost when a running student jostled him. "Hey!"

"Sorry about that!" the student called as he continued running full pelt down the hallway.

"Didn't even bother to turn around and apologize properly," the pinkette griped. "What it is with people these days?"

"You'll sound like and old man if you say things like that," Yuujiro chuckled.

Tohru didn't get in on the game, and was instead looking in the direction the sprinter had disappeared to. "Well, he seemed like he was really in a hurry," he murmured.

The three turned at the sound of more running footsteps, and came to face to face with a small pack of students heading straight towards them.

"Yaugh!" Flashing back to episodes of being swarmed by classmates whenever he appeared in a new dress, Mikoto covered his head and ducked…and the mob passed them by.

"Is something going on?" Tohru wondered out loud.

Just then, a classroom door burst open and another six boys came flooding out, stumbling over each other as they raced towards where all the others had gone. One of them actually fell with an "Oomph!" but his buddies were already gone from sight.

Yujiiro helped him to his feet. "Where's everyone going?"

The student hardly took the time to dust himself off. "To the cafeteria! Hurry, or you'll miss them!" And with that, he shot off down the hall.

The former Princesses looked at each other.

"Them?"

"Any one else want to check it out?"

"Yes, let's."

Several more boys passed them as they walked, and it became apparent they were destined for the cafeteria.

"Sounds like a fight," Tohru raised his voice over the growing din.

"Fight?" the blonde repeated as they came across the crowd just inside the cafeteria doors. "Who'd come all this way for a fight?"  
The former Eastern Princess started elbowing his way through the sea of students. "Come on, we can't see anything from here. Out of the way! –Oh."

"Hey, Mikoto, why are we stopping? –Oh."

The dining hall was ringed with what seemed to be the entire student body, taking pictures with their cellphones or simply staring in lovestruck awe. In the center of a wide clearing was a small, two-person table.

Sitting there, peacefully eating their lunch in full Princess regalia, were Izumi and Matsuoka.

"Oh, man, look at that cute bento!" someone squealed to Mikoto's left.

"See how Matsuoka holds the teacup? That's high class, I tell you, high class," someone sighed on Tohru's right.

The pinkette facepalmed. "I taught him that," he muttered.

Gasps were heard from all across the cafeteria as Izumi speared the last bite of a fluffy cake on a fork and held it up to Matsuoka's mouth. Yuujiro duly noted that the piece was just small enough so Matsuoka didn't have to open his mouth too wide. It seemed they were taking his lessons to heart.

"Hey, don't you think it's weird how no one's noticed us?" Mikoto spoke just loudly enough for his friends to hear him over the fanboy talk.

The blonde shrugged. "It's kind of refreshing. But we've eaten a few times in our Princess outfits before, and we've never drawn this big a crowd."

Three sophomores in front of them spouted nosebleeds when Izumi used a lace handkerchief to dab at spot of cream on the brunette's cheek.

'Dab, don't wipe,' Tohru remembered chiding the freshman during that first week of instruction.

Somewhere behind Yuujiro, a high-pitched voice said, "It's like a tea party of goddesses!"

His surrounding compatriots agreed.

"They're elven maidens, elven maidens, I tell you."

"They are so out of my league."

"Our lowly cafeteria isn't worthy of these precious gems!"

"You know, I think we did too good of a job with those two," mused Mikoto. "I think everyone's forgotten about us."

"I thought you wanted to push all the attention onto them," Tohru noted dryly. "But…did we ever sit that close when we ate?"

Yuujiro shrugged. "Well, we did use a bigger table."

A collective groan rose from the audience as the blonde Princess folded the bentos back into their respective cloths, and Matsuoka offered a hand to help his friend with a gentle grin.

"Hey, you never helped me from my seat, even when my stupid wig kept getting caught on back of the chair," Mikoto complained to Yuujiro.

"I had my own wig to think about!"

Izumi took the proffered hand and rose, smiling. The smile quickly morphed into a look of alarm as Izumi tripped on nothing. The bespectacled Princess reacted swiftly, catching the taller boy against his chest.

The room went silent. There were several "thud"s as various students fainted.

'Thank goodness they figured out how to fall gracefully.' Although Tohru never thought that would be applied to this sort of scenario.

Izumi and Matsuoka stayed that way, with the blonde pressed up against the brunette's chest, and stared at each other for several seconds.  
A camera phone went off with a "click!"

Snapping out of it, Izumi gave Matsuoka a dazzling smile of gratitude and stood up, as clicking noises and camera flashes went off around them.

Now that they show was over, a mass of uniformed boys began filing out of the dining hall, and the retired trio went to pick up their trays.

"They've gotten good at the Princess thing."

"Yeah, they were perfect in every way. I couldn't have done that better myself."

"But, did it look like they smiled more at each other, instead of at the students?"

They took at minute to process that.

"Nah."

"Couldn't be."

"It's just your imagination."

Still, throughout their meal, they carefully avoided the subject of their successors.

Matsuoka and Izumi spent the following week wondering why Kouno, Shihoudani and Yutaka kept staring at them funny every time they did something together.

* * *

A/N: They created monsters…

Help with my language would be welcome, since this was done with minimal editing. Read and Review. Review. Even a one-word review like "YAY!" will suffice. They feed my pet Spikit.


	2. Omake

An omake for sparkly red ribbon. At first, I misread that person's review and thought they wanted to see the circumstances leading up to that last scene in the main story. Then I re-read the review and realized that person wanted to see an "after" scene. Oops…

Someone please tell Sasameyuki to get her butt in gear!

Disclaimer: Princess Princess and Princess Princess + do not belong to me and are the property of Mikiyo Tsuda. This story is for free public distribution.

* * *

Fujimori Boys School's sports teams were a force to be reckoned with. Whether in basketball, water polo or golf, whenever Fujimori appeared as the competition, other schools would immediately be on edge. If one took a survey of schoolboys in the region, it was evident that Fujimori's students were far from the strongest, fastest or brightest. However, something drove them into becoming one of the leaders in interdistrict competitions, making other teams immediately send out their frontliners and resigning weaker competitors to a sad, sad fate. Did Fujimori have superior training equipment? Were their coaches working them like slaves, practicing around the clock? Did those students confine themselves to strict diets of nothing but protein shakes and the despair their enemies? Or did they sell their souls to the devil?

"Do your best everyone!"

"Great work, guys!"

It was Halloween, and a tall blonde devil accompanied by an adorable, bespectacled angel cheered from the sidelines at track practice.

"Here you go," they said, passing out towels and water bottles to the team members.

"Matsuoka-hime is so kawaii with angel wings!" a relay team member sighed.

"I would love to take Izumi-hime home with me," the 200-meter dash star twittered.

Did they sell their souls to the devil? Something like that.

* * *

Another day, another round of the sports teams.

The swim team. "Fujimori go!"

The wrestling team. "Wow, you're so strong!"

The chess team. "…." *smile* *smile*

The volleyball team. "Work hard, everyone!"

Lunchtime.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted." A quiet, tolerant person by nature, Izumi Tomoe was not normally one to complain, but he made an exception for the current schedule. "First, we had to wake up extra early for the swim-team's zero period practice hours, and then it was non-stop from there!"

"At least we're done for the day," his companion said. "And just in time for lunch." With a smile that would have sent any nearby schoolmate swooning, Matsuoka Kiriya held up three cloth-wrapped boxes.

Tomoe lit up at the sight. "I'll come over later to thank your sister for making us those bentos. But is the tea set really necessary?"

"It was a gift from a friend. I think my sister wants to see it put to good use," the brunette elaborated, giving his packages a wing.

"Ah, I see." Understanding bloomed on the taller princess's face. "Man, Kiriya, it's a good thing we brought these with us earlier. If we had to walk all the way back to our rooms to grab lunch, I'd die of starvation."

"Don't exaggerate," the bespectacled boy chided.

"I don't even have the energy to change out right now," his partner continued anyway as they journeyed to the cafeteria.

By the time they got there, a good portion of the lunch area had been filled, but it only took a little scouting before Kiriya zeroed in on an empty table near the end of the lunch line—with only two chairs, it would do. He went to fill the teapot with hot water, leaving Tomoe to disassemble their fare.

Kiriya could feel the stares of his schoolmates, causing hairs on the back of his neck to prickle, but he was used to it by now. Remembering to flash a smile every so often, he walked up take a spot in back of the hot water line—which immediately dispersed. With another perfectly engineered smile and a quiet "Thank you," he strode up the dispenser, filled up his teapot and made his way back to the table. The special treatment that came with the whispers and stares were something he'd gotten used to also.

The blonde had waited for him to come back before he started eating. The smaller princess set down the teapot, carefully arranged his skirts to look proper before sitting down, and they both gave a brief "Itadakimasu!" and promptly dug in.

Tomoe grinned in delight. "This is really good. I always love your sister's cooking!"

The other princess couldn't decide whether or not to let his friend know that they were just bits of leftovers that happened to fit two bentos, which was why their contents were different—Tomoe's had beef on rice with salad, and Kiriya's had pork on rice with broccoli. Even the slices of cake they both had for dessert were mismatched.

He opened his mouth and said, "Try some of my pork, I think you'll really like it."

"Wow, really? Thanks a lot, Kiriya!"

Looking at the other boy's blissful expression, he decided he didn't have the heart to tell him. But he didn't expect a loaded fork to be stuck in his face for his efforts.

"Wha-?"

"Here, you can try some of mine, too."

"It's okay, it's not like I haven't had my own sister's cooking before."

"But I had some of yours, which means you're eating less than me. This makes us even!"

"That's not really necessary…"

"Oh, stop being silly and say 'Ah.'"

He just couldn't say "no" whenever Tomoe had that childlike smile on his face. The brunette closed his eyes in submission. "Ah."

Neither boy noticed the collective gasp that rose from their surroundings.

* * *

"And that's what happened. We were just eating lunch." The blonde freshman shrugged. "I don't know how it became some sort of celebrity photoshoot."

Tohru Kouno, Yuujiro Shihoudani, and Mikoto Yutaka stood in front of their successors and gaped.

A flash of light glinted across Matsuoka's glasses. "Hey, but if it was really that big of a deal…do you think we can do that again as a sort of fundraiser? 'Lunch with the Princesses,' or something like that?"

Mikoto scoffed. "You gotta be kidding…"

"I think that is an excellent idea!" Akira exclaimed, scratching his chin in thought. "From how you three described it, that would probably be enough to get the supplies the art club needs for their upcoming competition."

Mikoto, as was his habit, started spazzing out. "What kind of loony-"

"Mitaka," Akira pulled his vice-president aside, "come help me decide how much we should charge per ticket. And what do you think our budget for this should be?"

"-wrong with this school-"

Shihoudani smiled approvingly at the younger princesses. "So that's what it was about. I didn't know you had it in you."

"What what was about?" the brunette boy asked, slightly confused.

"-of all the ideas-"

"Well, the whole lunchtime thing. You were planning to make it into an event the entire time. You kids are some geniuses."

"-why didn't I transfer-"

"No, I just thought of that now, when you said how popular it was." Matsuoka replied. "We were just eating lunch. How were we supposed to know we'd send people to the nurse's office just by drinking tea?"

"Yeah, it's not like the entire school hasn't seen us in dresses before," the elegant blonde sitting beside him added.

Shihoudani's smile faltered and Yutaka stopped mid-rant.

"Eh?" Kouno made a sound of surprise. "But what about those looks you were giving each other?"

Izumi cocked his head. "What looks?"

"Well, you know," the blunette continued, uncharacteristically awkward. "The looks…and the feeding…"

"You were looking at each other all sparkly-eyed!" Yutaka interjected, glaring at the pair like they had sprouted antennae. "What was up with that?"

"Maybe because we were wearing mascara?" the brunette snapped, peeved at the strange questioning. "We're supposed to look sparkly."

The excitable sophomore's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

Even though he couldn't tell exactly what had his three sempai on the edge, Izumi tried to amend the situation. "Hey, at least it all worked out for the best—if we didn't know the student body had a weird fetish for watching us eat, we wouldn't have this fundraiser. Getting paid to eat, how cool is that?"

"Ano, that's not the point," Kouno tried to explain. "We would eat lunch in Lolita sometimes when we were Princesses too, and we never got a reaction like that."

"Then you just have weird freshmen this year," Matsuoka muttered.

"No, it's actually because you two-"

Izumi suddenly leapt off the couch. "Ah, it's time for that Health and Safety Class study session." He did a quick bow. "Please excuse us. Come on, Kiriya, we're late!"

"Excuse us," Matsuoka echoed and bowed before bolting through the still-open door.

Yuujiro looked towards the direction they disappeared in and shook his head.

"Hey, was it me," Mikoto asked, "or did they seem like they were sitting kind of close together just now?"

* * *

I think sparkly red ribbon wanted more for Izumi and Matsuoka to explain their behavior, but the charm of the pair (like at the ending scene of Princess Princess +) is that they don't know they're doing it. Those two are totally adorable shoujo-ai that the school just eats up…and they're totally oblivious. They're just two good friends who don't realize that's not what it looks like to everyone else. I was trying to think of a freshman-level class that would have an afterschool study session, and Health and Safety was all I could come up with, because they might not be in geometry yet.

Please review! Just say "I read this" or something, because I have no idea how many (or few) people actually sit through this.


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